Strictly Come Dancing 2020: Bruno Tonioli to miss live final due to travel restrictions
Roisin O'Connor
Bruno Tonioli will miss the live Strictly final
Strictly Come Dancing judge Bruno Tonioli will be forced to miss this year's final due to Covid-19 restrictions.
The Italian choreographer had typically travelled from the US to the UK and back again while filming Strictly and Dancing with the Stars (the US equivalent), on which he is also a judge.
He has appeared on Strictly via a video link during this year's series but had hoped to return in person for the final in December.
However, the BBC One show confirmed it has been deemed too risky for the 65-year-old to travel from the US, and will instead continue to include him via a video link.
Tonioli has been a judge on the series since it launched in 2004.
Fellow judges Shirley Ballas, Craig Revel Horwood and Motsi Mabuse will now judge the 2020 final without him in the studio.
Bill Bailey is the runaway favourite to win Strictly Come Dancing 2020, according to Ladbrokes.
The comedian is far ahead of his fellow competitors with odds of 4/6 to take this year's Glitterball Trophy.
Singer and social media star HRVY is in at second place with odds of 4/1 to win Strictly 2020, while Radio 1 DJ Clara Amfo is in third place at 8/1, despite dropping from the top to the bottom of the leaderboard in the space of a week.
Former frontrunner Maisie Smith has fallen down the list after surviving her second consecutive dance off. Her odds are now at 10/1.
See the full list of odds for Strictly Come Dancing here.
The 12 most memorable Strictly moments of all time
BBC reporter Ben Hunte receives racist abuse after Laurence Fox tweet
Jack Whitehall 'dwarf joke' complaints upheld by BBC
There will be no inaugural balls, no boozed-up crowds dancing and singing. Those festivities of a healthy democracy will be replaced by a capital city under military occupation, a National Mall empty of almost anyone but soldiers.
Qatar's foreign minister wants Gulf Arab nations to talk with Iran: Bloomberg
"This is also a desire that's shared by other GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) countries," he said in an interview. Separately, the Qatari government was supporting discussions between Iran and South Korea to secure the release of an oil tanker seized by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards early this month, the foreign minister said. As far as any potential U.S.-Iran talks, he said that Qatar will facilitate the discussions if asked and will support whoever is chosen to do so.
Explainer: Who is Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny?
Alexei Navalny has been the most vocal and effective critic of Russia's government and President Vladimir Putin. This was the moment Navalny boarded a plane from Berlin to Moscow, his first return home since being near fatally poisoned by a Novichok nerve toxin, a version of events the Kremlin rejects. {Alexei Navalny} What a flight. I want to thank Germany, and I want to thank you all. I hope we will finish our flight safely. I am sure everything will be absolutely wonderful. But he didn't get far. He was detained at passport control and said goodbye to his wife. Now – he's being held in this Moscow prison in pre-trial detention despite calls from Western countries and the UN to free him. The son of an army officer, the 44-year-old grew up in Obninsk, about 60 miles southwest of Moscow. He has a degree in law and spent time in the United States on a fellowship at Yale. Navalny is best known in Russia for producing detailed investigations into corruption. His nickname for the ruling United Russia party – the "party of crooks and thieves" – has become common coinage among his supporters. His calls for restrictions on immigration and criticism over what some viewed as his overly nationalist views led to his expulsion from the liberal Yabloko opposition party in 2007. During anti-Putin demonstrations in 2011, he was one of the first protest leaders arrested. In 2013, Navalny ran for mayor of Moscow. He lost to the Kremlin-backed choice, but still got 27% of the vote despite little to no coverage on the state-controlled media outlets. Since then Alexei Navalny has been barred from running for office. Instead he uses social media to mobilize crowds of mostly young protestors. Putin and the Kremlin make a point of never saying his name. Navalny has been detained countless times for organizing public rallies and prosecuted repeatedly. He - and his supporters – have also been physically attacked. In 2017 a green antiseptic dye was thrown at him, causing him to temporarily lose sight in one eye. In August 2020 he fell ill on a flight from Siberia. He was flown to Berlin and treated for what tests showed to be Novichok - a poison developed in the Soviet Union. A joint media investigation said it had identified a team of assassins from Russia's FSB security service. Putin dismissed the investigation as a smear, saying: "If someone had wanted to poison him, they would have finished him off."
Shakib returns with 4-8 as Bangladesh defeats West Indies
Chrissy Teigen made her first Shabbat dinner with chicken soup, challah, and a babka from Trader Joe's
How will Trump hand over the nuclear 'football' to Biden when he skips the inauguration?
Viktor Orban accused of putting son through Sandhurst at Hungarian taxpayer's expense